To be fair, I don’t think most of us posting about continually supporting Stones over the years are arguing he didn’t deserve criticism for his various poor performances or personal frailties. In fact, many of us have criticised him for them. As
@mccity eloquently said, “fair criticism is ok”.
I am only personally arguing that with players like Stones certain elements of the media and City supporters make it difficult for him (and other players) to ever move past that discrete criticism or the general label of being “poor”, regardless of later performance. As others have said, players are often treated as less “human” than the rest of us, for better or worse — often worse when it comes to expectations that they perform at the highest possible level all the time or they are “shit”. Again, I know I have been guilty of this in the past and I am trying to improve there, not least because I am having to struggle through seeing my abilities degrade by the month. It’s a humbling experience that certainly alters your perception of many things, including your own tendency toward being overly critical of your idols, in this case sporting role models.
Some of the higher standards of expected behaviour obviously come with the role and are perfectly reasonable — they knew they would be under a higher level of scrutiny when aspiring to be a top class footballer. But some of it is genuinely over the top (i.e. beyond normal human capacity/ability to meet) and contributes to unreasonable pressures on public figures which can, in turn, lead to very unpleasant outcomes.
Great points, as usual. And I will freely admit I have been guilty of much of the unreasonable actions you describe.
I am glad to hear your enjoyment of football is slowly returning — I certainly hope mine does, as well, as I could very much use a sustainably pleasant distraction right now.
